THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 2 75 



mankind in the time of Moses, but which we are not yet 

 able to read perfectly. Let us see how far we can collect 

 the decyphered letters into a comprehensible whole. 



The earliest condition of the earth, to the knowledge of 

 which something more than mere dreaming, and, at least, 

 well ordered scientific analogies, at present lead, is that of 

 a molten, incandescent, fluid mass, surrounded by a dense 

 atmosphere which contained, as steam, all the water now 

 flowing over the earth, perhaps a considerably greater 

 amount of oxygen, but certainly an incomparably greater 

 proportion of carbonic acid than it now includes among its 

 constituents. The earth must have gradually cooled down 

 in space which, according to approximative estimates, has 

 a cold of 40 degrees ; the fused mass must have solidified 

 and formed a firm crust, upon which a portion of the 

 watery vapour, not now repelled by the cooler earth, fell as 

 rain. Every cooling body contracts, and thus the crust of 

 the earth must also have contracted; from this cause 

 fissures must have been produced, out of which a portion of 

 the still fluid nucleus would be pressed, rise out over the 

 fissure and become spread around its margins ; in this way 

 forming the first inequalities or mountains, and thus also 

 the distinction between more elevated dry land and the sea 

 covering the level portions. Through the continuous 

 process of cooling, through ever-increasing thickening and 

 contraction of the earth-crust, this process must have been 

 often, and each time more violently, repeated ; with more 

 violence because in the thicker crust the cracks would 

 continually become narrower, and the mass which by cooling 

 must have become more viscid, would not, in issuing from 

 the fissures, spread out evenly over the borders, but be 

 pushed upward to gradually increasing heights. But in 

 the same proportion as the firm crust became thicker and 



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